The Ruby Reflector

Well, what about the rest of the Stack Exchange network ? How about our sister site at programmers.stackexchange which is less about programming problems with source code and more about whiteboard style conceptual programming questions? Apparently, career questions are not welcome there either . But wait! Surely programmer career questions are a fit on a site that's explicitly about career related topics? The very same question was asked on workplace.stackexchange …

• Topics: Stack Exchange, Audio engineering, Stack Overflow, Jeff, Computer software

…four solid years thinking of discussion as the established corrupt empire, and Stack Exchange as the scrappy rebel alliance , I began to wonder - what would it feel like to change sides? What if I became a champion of random, arbitrary discussion, of the very kind that I'd spent four years designing against and constantly lecturing users on the evil of?

I already built an X-Wing; could I build a better Tie Fighter?

If you're wondering what all those sly references …

• Topics: Stack Exchange, Q&A, WordPress, Internet forum, Internet
• Coding Horror: Why Ruby?
• Giles Bowkett: A Few Problems With "GitHub Is My Resumé"
• ZURB: Influencers Answer: Is It Complex to Create a Simple Product?
• Lessons Learned: Sneak preview, KISSmetrics (and more)
• Global Nerdy: FizzBuzz Still Works

Stack Overflow has grown out by expanding into the Stack Exchange Network , which includes Stack Overflow, Server Fault, and Super User for a grand total of 43 different sites. That's a lot of fruitful multiplying going on.

What hasn't changed is Stack Overflow's openness about what they are doing. And that's what prompted this update. A recent series of posts talks a lot about how they've been handling their growth: Stack Exchange's Architecture…

• Topics: Stack Overflow, Linux kernel, NoSQL, Overflow, Redis
• Coding Horror: Welcome Back Comments
• Signal vs. Noise: All the wrong reasons for Stack Overflow's VC chase
• Giles Bowkett: Blogs Are Godless Communist Bullshit
• The Life Of A Radar: I want you to give
• SKORKS: It's Not About The Duct Tape It's About The People (And More)
• Lee Munroe: 10 Websites Every Web Designer Should Know About

…threading is to put a hard cap the level of replies that you allow . Although Stack Exchange is not a discussion system - it's actually the opposite of a discussion system, which we have to explain to people all the time - we did allow, in essence, one level of threading. There are questions and answers, yes, but underneath each of those, in smaller type, are the comments.

Now there's a bunch of hard-core discussion sociology here that I don't want to get into, like …

• Topics: Reddit, Network News Transfer Protocol, Twitter, Quora, Hacker
• Giles Bowkett: Zed Shaw As Performance Art
• SKORKS: Why Aren't You Awesome Yet? (Learning Via The World-Wide Community)
• dealloc.me -- Justin Palmer: Programming Politics
• Viget.com Blogs: Some of My Favorite Books about Programming
• Signal vs. Noise: Commercial freedom
• Global Nerdy: Salmagundi for December 20, 2011

I am no longer a part of Stack Exchange .

I still have much literal and figurative stock in the success of Stack Exchange, of course, but as of March 1st I will no longer be part of the day to day operations of the company, or the Stack Exchange sites , in any way.

It's been almost exactly 4 years since I chose my own adventure . In those four years, we accomplished incredible things together. Stack Overflow is now an enormous bustling city, …

• Topics: Stack Exchange, Steve Jobs, Internet, Q&A, Stack Overflow
• Coding Horror: The Organism Will Do What It Damn Well Pleases
• Coding Horror: For a Bit of Colored Ribbon
• Global Nerdy: Farewell and Thanks, Jeff Atwood!
• Ruby-coloured glasses: Go the fuck home...
• : Rails Bugmash August 2009: Before, During & After
• Software by Rob: My Report on StackOverflow DevDays

…we fixed this very definitively with Stack Exchange. Every Stack Exchange site we launch has a meta from day one. We now know that meta participation is the source of all meaningful leadership and governance in a community, so it is cultivated and monitored closely.

I also paid penance for my sins by becoming the top user of our own meta. I've spent the last 2 years and 7 months totally immersed in the morass of bugs, feature requests, discussions, and support that is …

• Topics: Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange, Meta, GitHub, File Transfer Protocol
• Coding Horror: The Organism Will Do What It Damn Well Pleases
• High Scalability: Stack Overflow Architecture Update - Now at 95 Million Page Views a Month
• Giles Bowkett: Blogs Are Godless Communist Bullshit
• Signal vs. Noise: All the wrong reasons for Stack Overflow's VC chase
• The "Tech. Arch.": Camping light (nosql) with MongoDB
• Tammer Saleh: Installing PostgreSQL for Rails 3.1 on Lion

…Server Fault, Super User, and the rest of the Stack Exchange network .

Radically lower the bar for participation.

Trusting (some of) your users.

Life is the world's biggest MMORPG.

Bad stuff happens.

Love trumps money.

Rules can be fun and social.

All modern website design is game design.

Thoughtful game design creates sustainable communities.

The community isn't always right.

Some moderation required.

It's not the same experience …

• Topics: Q&A, Server Fault, Stack Exchange, Social, Overflow
• Coding Horror: Meetings: Where Work Goes to Die
• Global Nerdy: ImageThink's Renditions of MIX11's Day 1 Keynotes
• World Wide Webber: New Role: Chief Scientist with Neo Technology

…all the gaming elements are there in service of a higher purpose . I play the Stack Exchange game happily alongside everyone else, collecting reputation and badges and rank and upvotes, and I am proud to do so, because I believe it ultimately helps me become more knowledgeable and a better communicator while also improving the very fabric of the web for everyone. I hope you feel the same way.

(If you'd like to learn more about the current state of Gamification, I highly recommend …

• Topics: Gamification, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, Q&A, Beagle
• Coding Horror: For a Bit of Colored Ribbon
• ZURB: UX Playing Catch Up With Persuasive Technology
• Labnotes: Rounded Corners 264 — Chaos Monkey
• Envy Labs: Code School Course Evolution
• Engine Yard Developer Blog: Help Send Engine Yard to Austin for SXSW
• High Scalability: Stack Overflow Architecture Update - Now at 95 Million Page Views a Month

…Seconds is so good, in fact, it has rekindled my hopes that our new Stack Exchange Productivity Q&A can work. I'd love for our productivity site to be founded on a scientific basis, and not the blind cult of personality I've come to expect from the self-help industry.

Remember, nobody's going to help you ... except science , and if you're willing to put in the required elbow grease each and every day - yourself .

• Topics: Reading, Productivity, LITTLE, Change, Stack
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• High Scalability: Hot Scalability Links For November 5th, 2010
• Lance: Relative Weighting Versus Hour Estimates and Other Musings

…entirely true, as we do work with some sizable databases while building the Stack Exchange network .

I guess having 24 gigabytes of system memory is a little extravagant, but at these prices -- why not? What's the harm in having obscene amounts of memory, making my system effectively future proof?

I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last …

• Topics: Intel Core, SVN, Gates, Google Apps, DDR3
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